Running Full Tilt

by Michael Currinder

  Mrs. Andersen walked up to me, placed her hand on my wrist, and started babbling like I’d just seen her yesterday. “I was reading the obituaries the other day and saw your brother’s picture,” she told me. “I almost fell out of my chair, Leo. I swear that whenever it snows, I look out our kitchen window and see Caleb in his little snowsuit shoveling your driveway next door.” She gripped my wrist harder and started rattling off more memories about my brother.

  I looked around the room for Mom and Dad. Dad was working the floor, catching up with people I thought had fallen off the map. Mom sat with Grandma on a small sofa in the corner, and guests came to greet her there, mumbling a few words before visiting the coffin briefly to pay their respects. Grandpa was nowhere in sight. I figured he had probably slipped out back for a cigarette.

  I moved toward an open space in the center of the room, where Dad met me briefly. “Were you just talking to the Andersens?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that was them.”

  “Christ,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Guess word travels fast,” he said. “And was that Betsy?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced over my shoulder, gave her the once-over. “Well, she’s filled out nicely,” he said.

  “Jesus, Dad.”

  He scanned the room. “Well,” he said, “time to make a few more rounds.” He gave me a soft pat on the shoulder. “Let’s get back to work.”

  I looked around the room for a familiar face. I spotted a tall man in a dark overcoat standing in the corner nearest the door. He was alone, and by the looks of him he didn’t know anyone and wasn’t quite sure what to do. I walked over and introduced myself.

  “Jim Baims,” he said to me, extending his hand to me to shake.

  “So you’re Mr. Baims,” I said with a small grin. “I’m Leo. Caleb’s brother.”

  He looked startled. “Please,” he said, “call me Jim.” He studied my face. “So you’re Leo?” he asked me tentatively, like he was unconvinced. “I’ve had several meetings with your parents, but I don’t think we’ve met. Caleb talked about you quite a bit. Actually, Caleb used to talk a lot about your eyes.” He laughed softly. “Glad to see you still have them.”

  “Yeah, I still have my eyes,” I said, laughing. “Just barely.”

  Mr. Baims shifted his gaze toward the front of the room and the open casket. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re all right, Leo,” he said to me. “I always kind of imagined you as a blind kid.”

  “There were a few close calls,” I said, trying to make light of it. “But I’m still mostly intact.”

  I told him that Caleb used to mention his name quite a bit as well, usually when he was in a foul mood.

  “I’m sorry about that, Leo,” he said.

  “You don’t need to apologize. There was no rhyme or reason to it.”

  Mr. Baims smiled. “Caleb and I had our run-ins,” he admitted. “We didn’t always see eye to eye about how to behave in the classroom.”

  Dad acknowledged Mr. Baims from across the room just as I spotted Curtis and Mary standing in the doorway. I thanked him again for coming and went to meet them in the hall.

  Curtis was wearing a black suit that certainly provided more dignity than his father’s leisure suit had. Mary wore a simple black dress. I knew it was kind of weird to be thinking about her appearance at a moment like this, but she looked amazing, and she lifted my mood. She took my hand and held it.

  “How are you doing, man?” Curtis asked. He sounded concerned, even solemn, for once.

  “Fine, I guess,” I told them. “I’m kind of on autopilot at the moment and haven’t really had much time to process.”

  “Wow,” Curtis whispered, looking around the room in confusion. “Who are all these people?”

  “Hard to explain.”

  Curtis then spotted the coffin. “Whoa. You didn’t tell me it was going to be open casket.”

  “Sorry, Curtis. My father meant to consult with you about it, but I think you were busy when he called.”

  Curtis flinched, and I softened. “Seriously, I think it’s a Catholic thing,” I told him.

  The three of us walked over to the casket and looked at Caleb. Curtis was clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t know what I think about the whole open-casket concept,” he concluded. “Would you do it?”

  “I’ve never thought about it,” I told him.

  His raised his eyebrows skeptically. “You haven’t? Really?”

  “A hundred percent,” I told him. “Can we save this conversation for another time?”

  Curtis looked around again at all the people. “One thing is for sure, Leo,” he told me. “Caleb had more friends than you.”

  I smirked, then guided Mary to a corner of the room, where we could sit down for a minute. “How are you really doing?” she asked.

  “What do you mean, how am I doing?” I asked her, gently nodding toward the casket. “The last time I saw him, he was so crazy with life, running and laughing. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense, Leo,” she said quietly, taking my hand. “My grandpa Pete always told me, ‘We’re all just waiting in line.’ Not too upbeat, but kinda true.”

  “And on that note, I think I’d better get back to work,” I told Mary, figuring it was better to keep moving. In the corner of the room, I’d just spotted Mr. Baims with Caleb’s teacher and some of his friends from school. “Dad told me I had to walk around and talk to people. C’mon. You should meet Caleb’s friends.”

  The four of them were seated on two couches facing each other. Caleb had been in the same class with them for a couple of years, and I had met all of them at one time or another. Scott Brewster and Kevin McCarthy sat on one side, sunken into their seats, arms crossed, chins pressed to their chests, looking somewhat confused. Juanita and James sat opposite. Juanita Daniels was the closest thing Caleb had to a romantic interest. She wasn’t any taller than four feet and had these tiny facial features that reminded me of the little old lady from the Poltergeist movies. In terms of their relationship, I’d never heard Juanita say as much as a single word. Their connection was basically platonic, but Caleb adored her. Of the four, James and Juanita seemed the most understanding of the occasion and acknowledged me when I approached them.

  James spoke first. “Your brother was quite a guy, Leo.” Juanita nodded.

  “Quite a guy,” he repeated. He was Caleb’s oldest friend and I’d known him forever. He had a deep voice and had always spoken to me in a fatherly, almost patronizing way.

  “Tell me what you’ll remember most about him, James,” I said. The night had been a series of brief conversations, each person telling me something kind, wonderful, and memorable about Caleb. James ended that.

  “For one thing, your brother sure could get mad!” James said loudly. “Boy,” he yelled, “Caleb sure could get angry!”

  “Oh, yeah,” Juanita agreed. “Caleb sure could get mad.” Scott and Kevin sat up, suddenly interested in the conversation.

  “When he got mad, Miss Lee told us to get under the desks,” James continued. “Miss Lee yelled ‘Get under your desks now! Cover your head! Go get Mr. Baims!’ ”

  “Really?” I laughed to myself. It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine one of my brother’s tantrums and everyone running for cover.

  Mr. Baims, hearing his name, interrupted his conversation with Miss Lee and tried to redirect the group. “C’mon guys, let’s tell some of the nicer things we’ll remember about Caleb.”

  James nodded at Mr. Baims’s suggestion. “Caleb was quite the baker,” he recalled.

  “Oh, yeah,” Scott confirmed. He spoke softly without expression. “Quite the baker.”

  “He was a good runner—even better than me,” Kevin added. “And he brought brownies on our birthdays!”

  “Caleb never forgot a birthday,” Scott said.

  Juanita nodded in agreement. “Caleb never forgot anything!”

  They told me
about Caleb’s lemon cakes, his musical tastes, and the time he pulled the fire alarm, but nobody could tell me about Monica and who put butter on her nose. She would remain a mystery.

  I looked over at the casket once more where Caleb lay. Beneath his fixed expression, I could imagine his gleeful grin. “Well,” I said to them, “I guess it’s going to be a whole lot quieter in the classroom.”

  “That’s for sure!” said James. “That is for sure!” Then James leaned toward me and mumbled, “I am very sad about Caleb.”

  It was starting to get late. I had a conversation with a couple of my dad’s friends from the office, Caleb’s teacher, and a few more neighbors. I said good-bye to Caleb’s friends, wished them the best, and wondered if I’d ever see any of them again.

  Suddenly the room emptied almost as quickly as it had filled. I walked with Mary and Curtis to the entrance. Curtis nodded at me and slipped outside, leaving Mary and me alone.

  “You need anything, Leo?” she asked.

  “I think we’re doing all right,” I mumbled.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m not sure what I need, Mary.” I looked back down the hallway. “My brother is inside a box back in that room, and he’s going to be lowered into the ground tomorrow,” I told her. “It’s all pretty surreal at the moment. He’s gone.”

  She grabbed my hand. “I keep trying to think of something more original to say than ‘I’m sorry.’ But, truly, I can’t think of anything. I’m so sorry.” Then she started crying.

  “Please,” I said to her, trying not to lose it. We held each other a minute before we both pulled ourselves together. “I have to go back,” I told her. “Thanks for coming. Tell Curtis I really appreciate it.”

  “We’re here,” she told me.

  I nodded, then turned back inside before I finally lost it again.

  The evening ended the same way it began: just my mother, my father, and me. An attendant came by again and closed the door. We looked at one another and didn’t say a word, then each of us approached the casket alone to look at Caleb one last time and say good-bye. It was strange, looking down upon my brother, his eyes softly closed, his face relaxed. I thought about the last time I saw him, finishing our run together and exchanging high fives. I reached into my pocket and took out the cross-country medal that I had won at districts in October, the race of my life. I wanted to give him a gift that meant something to both of us. Before leaving the house earlier that evening, I’d grabbed it from the shelf in our bedroom. It had been displayed beside the medals Caleb had won at the Special Olympics and half marathon. For a moment I’d thought about taking Caleb’s medals, but I’d decided I wanted to keep them. I slipped my medal into his breast pocket, patted his heart, and whispered good-bye.

  After a few more minutes, we left the room and grabbed our umbrellas, preparing for the storm, but, when we stepped outside, the rain had stopped, and the sky was clear. I saw a sliver of the moon in the darkness, and there must have been a million stars above us.

  41.

  SOME TIME AGO MY GRANDPARENTS bought a family plot in a cemetery in the country south of the city, and that’s where Caleb was buried. His gravesite overlooked an open field speckled with tombstones, tall willow trees, and a large lake. Watching the geese float on the shimmery surface, I thought it seemed fitting that my brother had ended up near water. The ceremony was quick and simple. A priest said a few words, and it was over. Mom took solace in my father’s arms and cried when the casket was finally lowered into the earth. I stood beside my grandparents, simply too tired and numb to react by that point.

  I wondered why Dad had hired a limousine to drive the five of us from the funeral home, but then I realized that none of us were in any state to drive. We were all exhausted, but it was a different kind of tired, the one when your whole body feels slow and empty.

  Still, despite exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep.

  I lay awake thinking about what happened, and more so, how it happened. Caleb loved swimming on Saturdays, probably because the pool was mostly empty during the morning, except for lap swimmers, so he usually had the deep end entirely to himself.

  I thought about him jumping off that high dive. He would climb up the ladder, make sure the board tension was adjusted for maximum spring, and position himself at the near end of the board. Then he’d storm down at full speed and launch himself, his steps timed perfectly to get the most spring from his bounce. He would explode off the board like he was going to sail clear past the edge of the pool. I thought about him in midair, in the midst of that crazy corkscrew twist, laughing maniacally. I used to watch him with my goggles sometimes when he went below.

  He was pure muscle. Underwater, he’d sink to the bottom and sometimes sit a moment on the pool floor before pushing off and returning to the surface. He’d paddle to the side of the pool, climb the ladder, and prepare for his next launch, laughing his ass off the entire time. He’d jump off that high dive for hours. I suppose his rhythms and patterns, as much as they were abnormal, became normal at that pool. So probably nobody noticed when he didn’t come up after that last jump.

  Mom said it was likely a seizure.

  Dad said that the teenager lifeguarding hadn’t done his job and there would be hell to pay. But we’d worry about that later.

  Nobody was quite sure what happened. All we knew was that, from the amount of water they had to pump from his stomach and lungs, Caleb was probably on the bottom of the deep end for a long time before an old man swimming laps saw him lying there.

  I imagined he had a smile on his face when he made his last splash. At least that’s what I wanted to think.

  When I went back to school on Monday, it was clear Rasmussen had spread the news. I mostly kept my eyes focused on the ground, trying to avoid superficial conversations, and when I did have to engage with someone, we kept it simple.

  “Sorry, man,” someone would mumble.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I’d reply.

  I went back to practice and I did the workouts, but I was just going through the motions—I was unfocused and lacked any intensity to push myself. Gorsky backed off and didn’t bark at me for not hitting my splits. Instead he told me not to worry, just run through it, that by maintaining a routine I wouldn’t lose my fitness. Gorsky said that by Saturday’s sectional qualifier, if I’d get my head back in it, I’d be ready to go.

  “I’ll drive you to the race tomorrow morning,” Dad told me at dinner on Friday. “You’ll get there in plenty of time.”

  I wanted to say bullshit. I didn’t feel right talking about running a race so soon after seeing my brother being put in the ground. The wake and funeral had sucked me dry, and the nervous energy that I’d come to rely upon to fuel me was absent. “I don’t know if I’m up for it, Dad,” I finally said.

  Dad sucked in his breath. “Leo, I know how you’re feeling. I also know you’ve worked hard for this, and it might be what you need. Let’s see how you feel about it tomorrow morning.”

  Sectionals were at Kirkwood, the track located behind the school smack-dab in the middle of an open field with no trees or windbreaks. When we arrived, I stepped out of the car into a warm gusty wind and a sky spitting raindrops.

  “It’s going to be a slow one, Coughlin,” Curtis told me, stating the obvious. “You don’t have to worry about killing yourself. Just be there for the finish and you’re good.”

  I must have been out of it when Mom came and found me stretching beneath the awning of an equipment shed, trying to avoid the rain. “Leo, they’ve announced second call for your race,” she informed me in a gentle voice. She was holding a small black umbrella and offering me a bottle of water. “Your father reminded me that you like to be left alone before a race, but you’re usually jogging around by now getting ready. Are you okay?”

  “I’m just trying to stay dry, Mom,” I answered, standing up and running in place for a few seconds. “I’d better go sign in so I don’t get scratched,” I told her as I headed to the
track.

  When I lined up for the start, I felt nervous, but I didn’t have that feeling like I was ready to jump out of my skin like I usually did before a race. I felt myself dreading the blast of the starter’s pistol and the pain and fatigue I was about to feel. I glanced up into the bleachers and spotted my parents, beneath umbrellas, wearing worried expressions, and then I turned and readied myself for the start.

  As Curtis predicted, the race went out slow and I felt like sludge from the start, legs heavy like the blood inside was concrete. We went through three laps at 3:22, a pace that should have felt pedestrian, but I was gassed. When the bell sounded, Fletcher took off and nobody went with him. I tucked in behind two guys from Lafayette and drafted off them down the backstretch, but in the final 150 meters they pulled away and I had nothing left. I crossed the line in fourth.

  “That’s good enough, Leo,” Gorsky assured me. “All we needed to do today was qualify and you did that.”

  Curtis was less satisfied. “The good news is that you qualified,” he said simply. “The bad news is, you looked like crap.”

  “You got lucky last week, Coughlin,” Fletcher yelled to me as he jogged by. “I’m going to kick your ass again next week at state.”

  Maybe the only silver lining in my day was that Mary was painting sets for the spring musical, so she didn’t witness the race.

  I woke up the next morning and headed out to Macklin Park to run. I hadn’t been back there since the race in the fall. The course looked different in the spring. The trails were still worn but were narrowed and almost covered by the fresh uncut grass. The smell of wet dirt and everything blooming filled my nose as I ran the trail skirting the bluff above the river. I tried to focus and remember the details of that race from last fall, hoping they might inspire me and get me back on track. About the point in the course where I overtook Curtis, I started feeling the life come back into my legs. I thought about the sacrifice he’d made for me that day and the proud expressions on my parents’ faces when I crossed the finish line in victory. I was feeling good, so I ran the loop again that morning, just like I’d done with Curtis. Passing the parking lot, I thought about Gorsky singling Curtis and me out for that final pep talk. As I passed the playground, I remembered Dad shouting at me from the hood of the car, Mom at the picnic table, and Caleb swinging so high on the swing, the metal chains went slack. Pretty soon I was cruising, reliving that entire race—all its pains, and all its joys.